Mary in Melbourne: royal couple arrive in town

One of the unpleasant facts of high-level public life is that you are forced to spend enormous amounts of time with your nemesis.

Imagine how thoroughly sick of each other Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott must be by the business end of the parliamentary year.

Their only outlet at state functions is passive-aggressive speechifying.

Every day they roll out of bed ready to face off. As they breakfast, each absorbs the barbs of the other through the morning's media. They trudge to work, thinking all the while how they can gain advantage over each other, and both turn up to Parliament, only to stare belligerently at each other, yet again, across the parliamentary table.

Great Danes ... the royal couple chat with the artist Jiawei Shen, who painted this portrait of Princess Mary. Photo: Andrew Meares

And so is it any wonder that when they are forced to put on a united front - such as when, say, a prince, a princess or a president comes to town - Gillard and Abbott can't help but lob a few underarm grenades each other's way?

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Like warring parents forced to make nice at the school play, their only outlet at state functions is passive-aggressive speechifying.

Yesterday was one such occasion. Our Mary, aka the Crown Princess of Denmark, visited Canberra with her husband, Crown Prince Frederik, and the Prime Minister hosted a fancy lunch for her.

Gillard and Abbott ... will get a break from one another at the end of the parliamentary year. Photo: Andrew Meares

We knew it was fancy because it was called a ''luncheon'' on the official program. Tasmanian wines were ordered in, an army band played rousing versions of the Danish and Australian national anthems and even Senator Bill Heffernan was on his best behaviour.

There were toasts to our sundry queens (Magrethe of Denmark and Elizabeth of Australia), following which our Prime Minister spoke.

After a few words about modern-day fairytales and the beauty of duty, Gillard retreated to her comfort zone. Denmark, she said, was a great nation known for its ''values and humanitarian commitment''. Quite right. Hear hear. ''A nation that leads the world in policies so crucial for our times, like clean energy.''

Danish royal visit

Princess Mary and Prince Frederik of Denmark, continue their six-day Australian tour. The Crown Prince couple travel to Canberra for a meeting and lunch with Prime Minister Gillard, a meeting with Tony Abbott, a visit to the National Gallery of Australia and National Portait Gallery and will lay a wreath at the Australian War Memorial. Photo: Karleen Minney

Hang on . . . ''Indeed, I welcome Denmark's commitment to reduce carbon emissions through a carbon price by 40 per cent by 2020 and boost the share of renewable to 50 per cent of energy consumption.''

And there it was. The unmistakable sound of our Clean Energy Future haunting us.

Next was Abbott's turn. He also retreated to his safe place. ''Your royal highnesses, Prime Minister, parliamentary colleagues, distinguished guests and, I think I can say amongst such an audience, fellow monarchists,'' he opened. The fact that the royal couple had created such a great stir in Parliament was down to ''the magic of monarchy'', he said.

And so it continued. To Gillard, the Danes are clean-energy poster boys. To Abbott, they're monarchists. As for Our Mary, we only caught a glimpse.